The Master of What, Exactly?
by Wild Vivid Imagination
Summary: New Who Series 1 AU featuring Jacobi!Master & Rose. After meeting an old man with a fob watch Rose Tyler is unexpectedly pulled into adventures in time and space by an alien criminal known as the Master. The Master himself, on the other hand, just tries to cope with his traumatic experiences in the Time War and his arch-nemesis' death. This trip will prove to be an interesting one.
1. Prologue

A/N: Hello there, I'm Wild Vivid Imagination, and this is my first posted Doctor Who fanfiction. This is just the prologue, but I'll be posting the first chapter later tonight. If you like, please review. If you don't like something, tell me so that I might be able to improve it.

Warnings for this chapter: There's a tiny bit of slash (one kiss), but that's just in this chapter, and you can blame my characterization of the Eighth Doctor for being stubborn and too romantic for his own good... And there might be some tiny hints of Doctor/Master in later chapters too, but you can ignore it if you want to.

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Prologue

_~In which the Doctor locks the Time War and gives the Master his last goodbyes~_

**~DW~**

It all started with a Dalek. All right, not just _one_ Dalek. Quite a lot of Daleks, actually. Chasing the Doctor and him. Screaming at them.

"**YOU ARE THE DOC-TOR AND THE MAS-TER! YOU WILL BE EX-TER-MIN-ATED!**" Hearing them all scream that at the same time over and over again was actually beginning to hurt his ears. However, the Master had more urgent worries. The fact that the Daleks were shooting at them with lasers. And that _he -the great Master of all-_ was currently weaponless. It was the Doctor's fault -of course that stupid pacifist would insist that they should escort the _Moment_, of all things, to the capital without bringing _one single _weapon except for the Doctor's worthless sonic screwdriver, and that would hardly count as a weapon anyway.

"Run faster!" the Doctor's voice called, bringing him back from his thoughts. This incarnation had a really lovely voice, the Master decided, even though this was only his second time interacting with him, and that time in San Francisco he'd been to focused on getting out of that nasty, _Human_ corpse and into a proper Time Lord body to bother thinking of such things as **his arch-nemesis's voice**. The body the man in front of him was currently using to run for his life with, could've been his if things had went differently. Then, that lovely voice would've been his, the Master realized. What a missed opportunity... (Well, at least he had a proper Time Lord body now. Thanks to that lovely Lady President... Romanadvoratrelundar, was it? Stupid her for being too scared to let him work with the Doctor until this point in the War, though...)

"This way, Master!" the Doctor called, casting a quick glance at the Master, and started running faster. When he started to think about it, the Master decided there were quite a lot of things about that body he liked. Those eyes, for example. Such a_ gorgeous _blue colour... And the hair. The way those _beautiful_ auburn curls flowed through the air as their owner ran for his life... And those Victorian-style clothes. They suited that body _perfectly_... Oh, and the way the word Master rolled off the tongue of that body. There had never been _any_ version of the Doctor who said his name like_ that_...

...At that moment the Master realized that he was having fantasies about _his arch-nemesis_ in the middle of a very crucial situation that might decide **the fate of the entire Universe**. That had the potential to be quite awkward... **if** it had been the first time it happened to the Master... ... ...

...Well, it wasn't. (Trust me, it really wasn't.)

The Master quickly gathered his thoughts and focused completely on following the Doctor while dodging laser beams all the way. They could see the gate that lead to the capital now. If they just could reach it, there was still hope. If they gave the Moment to Rassilon (the Master didn't quite understand why they had to revive _him_ of all persons to take over after Romana, it was quite unnecessary really), they might be able to win the War. The Master didn't know exactly what the Moment did, but he knew it was a very powerful weapon and the Doctor had been sent out to fetch it, and the Master had been assigned to help him. If it hadn't been for the fact that the Master knew that his home planet was in danger, he would've stolen the Moment and tried to use it for himself.

The Master cast a gaze behind them, and could see that the Daleks weren't quite as close to them as they had been a just a little while ago. Now they just had to reach the gate!

...It would've worked out well, really, if the Doctor hadn't tripped over a rock.

As he fell to the ground with a little grunt of pain and the Master sprinted past him, it seemed like a brilliant idea to just run for his life and leave the Doctor behind, _at first_. Then, he realized that the Doctor still possessed the Moment. _Then_, his survival instinct kicked in and told him to abandon the Doctor to his fate and keep running. _**Then**_, he made the mistake to turn around and look into the Doctor's blue, pleading eyes that seemed to say, _Koschei, I'm your best friend, don't leave me_... All his logic told him to run, but his hearts told him not to, but then again, when did he ever listen to his hearts?... ... ...

...Oh, to hell with it. (This _single_ time, he told himself.)

The Master turned around and quickly hauled the Doctor onto his back, and started running again. Now he suddenly wished he had that human body from their last meeting. At least that one had been tall and muscular, probably enough to carry this incarnation of the Doctor without problems... This one was fine too, but not quite strong enough to do it without problems. With the Doctor's arms wrapped around his neck, he almost tripped several times as he ran towards the gate and carried the Doctor to safety.

As they finally reached the gate and the Master tried to pull it open, it was locked. Naturally. Why would it just stand open for anyone to march in? That would be stupid, even for the naturally arrogant Time Lords. The Master was just about to shout for the guards as he realized that there were no guards there either. Now this was just getting stupid. And the Daleks were gaining on them for every second. The Doctor showed no sign of panic though, simply pulled out his sonic screwdriver and let it make strange noise. Somehow, that seemed to affect the gate, and it began to open, slowly but surely. As quickly as he could, the Master made a great effort to pull them both inside, and then pushed the gate back to close it. He let out an actual sigh of relief as he heard the gate's lock snap shut.

"We did it." the Master stated as he let the Doctor tumble off his back. As the Doctor sat down on the street, the Master felt a twinge of something that definitely was **not** worry for the other Time Lord, **oh no**, and asked: "What happened, Doctor?"

"I must have twisted my ankle." the Doctor said as he seemed to be inspecting his right foot. He gave the Master a smile. "Ah, well, it doesn't really matter anymore. We did it, Master. We did it." Somehow, the Master could now see something strangely sad about the Doctor's smile, and it gave him a bad feeling. A very bad feeling.

"So... We'll just get it to the Lord President now, and we'll be done with this mission." the Master stated, hoping that the bad feeling was just paranoia. The Doctor's smile became even more saddened, and he shook his head slowly.

"Oh, Master... You really thought we would, didn't you?" The Doctor let out a laugh, but there was no joy in the laugh, only sorrow and guilt. "I'm sorry, Master. I'm going to let everyone down... But I can't go on with this."

"What do you mean?" the Master asked, getting very suspicious.

"The Moment." the Doctor said softly. "No one told you what it really was for, did they? Of course not. They knew you wouldn't want to do this. We don't stand a chance anymore, Master. The Moment isn't a weapon -it's a last resort."

"What are you doing, Doctor?" the Master hissed as the Doctor pulled the Moment out of his pocket. (It was so small, for something so powerful...)

"The Moment is a device programmed to cause a Time Lock." the Doctor whispered. His voice was so desperate now, so helpless. "I'm so sorry, Master, but I really can't see another way out anymore..."

"A Time Lock?!" the Master hissed, realization dawning upon him. "Doctor, are you insane?! It will kill us all! Time Lords, Daleks... There'll be nothing left of either!" The Doctor looked back at him, then let out a deep sigh.

"I know. But the Daleks have to die anyway, and the Time Lords aren't really worth saving anymore. Haven't you notice what Rassilon is planning to do?! That End of Time business... I have to stop them... The Daleks _and_ the Time Lords!"

"Why do you have to have such a god damn hero complex?!" the Master shouted, his fury rising as the drums in his head began beating louder. "We'll die too, Doctor! You and I!" He then added, gentler: "I don't want to die. Not again."

"I should've guessed that." the Doctor said, smiling a sad smile again. "Well, actually I did guess it. So I made a plan to save you, Master." The Master couldn't help but notice one strange detail about the Doctor's choice of words.

"Me? What about you? Are you going to set me loose on the Universe while you are stuck inside a Time Lock?!" he asked angrily.

"Oh, it's not going to be you. Not in that sense of speech." the Doctor said softly and pulled something out of his pocket. The Master was quick to notice that it was a Chameleon Arch in the form of a golden pocket watch. Or more correctly, it was _the_ Chameleon Arch he'd stolen earlier in the War while he was planning to run away and hide at the end of the Universe as a human. However, the Chameleon Arch had mysteriously disappeared a few hours after he had gained it...

"You stole my Chameleon Arch!" the Master yelled furiously.

"Stole? Oh no, not really. More like, I borrowed it and programmed it for you." the Doctor explained. He tried to stand up, not so easy with his twisted ankle but he managed, and then proceeded to hang the pocket watch around the Master's neck.

"Programmed it?" the Master questioned. "What did you do, Doctor?"

"When I use the Moment, the Chameleon Arch is programmed to activate immediately and you will become human. The Moment only destroys Time Lords and Daleks inside the Time Lock, so if you're human, my TARDIS will be able to get you out of the Time Lock without harming you. She'll take you to 20th century Earth. You'll be safe there..."

"But I won't be me." the Master stated. "I'll be a human. A human identity that you made for me." The Doctor gave him another smile.

"It's a good identity, I promise... I wouldn't give you anything else than the best..."

"That's beside the point! If I don't figure out how to open my pocket watch, I'll grow old and die as a human!"

"I know." the Doctor said, his voice filled with regret. "But you'll die anyway, Master, so it's better to do so on Earth in peace than die in this hell where everyone's deaths will be slow and painful."

"What about you, Doctor?" the Master changed the subject suddenly, as if he had realized something.

"What about me? Oh. Well... I don't have a Chameleon Arch on my own." the Doctor said sheepishly. "I'll die here, Master. I'll die to end the Time War..."

"No!" the Master panicked. He couldn't do this, he just couldn't... "You can't do this, Doctor! If you die..." He couldn't manage to finish that sentence, maybe it was because of the Master's stupid pride. There were too many words he wanted to say. If the Doctor died... the Master had nothing left to live for? Nothing left to fight for? No one to compete with? No one to have sweet dreams and horrible nightmares about? The Master couldn't imagine his life without the Doctor. There couldn't be one without the other.

"It'll be all right, Master." the Doctor said kindly, placing his hand on the Master's cheek, brushing the Master's brown beard gently with his fingers. The Master heard a TARDIS materialize behind him, and through the corner of his eye he saw the Doctor's old Type 40, still stuck as an Earth police box, appear from thin air.

"You can't do this." he whispered in horror as the Doctor began pushing him towards the TARDIS. "Please, Doctor, don't do this to me. Why me? Why did you give me the Chameleon Arch?"

"Because I want you to live out your full potential." the Doctor said. "You'll become a bright human professor, you'll be respected and admired... You, if someone, need to get a little appreciation..."

"I don't want to! Let me stay with you, Doctor!"

"No! Live a good life, Master!" The Doctor had now pushed him up against the TARDIS doors. "Here. Take the TARDIS key. And my sonic screwdriver. Oh, and my psychic paper too! Also, here's a fake ID for your human self." He handed said items to the Master.

"I won't do this, Doctor." the Master hissed. "I'm not going to leave without you. Why can't you save yourself instead, Doctor?"

"Because I can't live with the shame of double genocide on my shoulders." the Doctor said, his voice soft with regret, guilt and shame. "You know that I can't."

"So you're going to make **me** live instead?!" the Master yelled, now desperate. "Doctor, if you die, I won't have anything left to live for!" There. He said it. And it seemed to affect the Doctor too, because he stared at the Master, looking surprised.

"Oh, Master." he then mumbled and pressed his lips quickly to the Master's own. (This incarnation really **was** a romantic one...) "I'm so sorry that I have to do this to you." He pulled away almost immediately, and pushed the Master through the TARDIS doors and closed them again.

"Doctor, let me out!" the Master tried to open the door by pushing it open violently, but the Doctor pressed it shut again. How he was able to hold back against the Master even with a twisted ankle was beyond the Master's imagination.

"I can't!"

"But you have to!"

"Sorry!" the Doctor yelled. "Farewell, Master! Live! For me!"

"Doctor!" the Master screamed desperately, but at that moment, the TARDIS began to make dematerializing sounds, followed by huge tremors as the TARDIS began to break through the newly forming Time Lock. At the very same moment, the Master felt the Chameleon Arch activate.

The last thing he felt before the Chameleon Arch erased his memories, was the most pain he had felt in his entire life as the rest of the Time Lord race was erased from existance.

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Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. If I did, why would I be writing fanfics?


	2. Rose and Yana

A/N: Okay, here's the first proper chapter! In this one, Rose comes into the story! ...I guess I could say that this is a rewrite of the episode "Rose" but with the Master instead of the Doctor, but that would be lying, because it's... well, different. Well, it would be very lame if it was the same as "Rose"... Ah, whatever, let's just say it's a different version of "Rose". Just read it and please tell me what you think! I appreciate feedback a lot!

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_Wild Vivid Imagination presents..._

**The Master of What, Exactly?**

Chapter 1: Rose and Yana

_~In which Rose Tyler meets living plastic and an old man with a broken fob watch~_

**~DW~**

Rose Tyler didn't consider herself anything special. She was just an ordinary young woman, who lived with her ordinary mother and had an ordinary boyfriend, and of course, an ordinary job. Because for an average girl from the Powell Estate, being a shop assistant wasn't really a bad job. It was an alright job, at least according to her mother Jackie. And then there was Mickey, whose greatest moments in his life seemed to be whenever there was a soccer game on. Not the greatest boyfriend imaginable. Not that Rose complained, oh no, it was all right. At least, that was what she kept telling herself whenever she began to find it dull. She could've had it so much worse -at least she actually had a job and a family!

This morning started off like any other. Rose got out of bed at 7:30, took a quick shower, brushed her long blonde hair that always got tangled when it got wet, got dressed (a pink hoodie and jeans today), ate some breakfast, kissed her mother goodbye and set off for the bus station. It was a sunny day, and the sun shone bright as Rose stood waiting for the bus. Even if the day was great, Rose couldn't help but think about a different life, maybe travelling the world... However, Rose was cut off from her thoughts as the bus arrived at the station.

The bus was unusually full today. Rose looked for an empty seat, and only spotted one next to an old man. She excused herself and sat down beside him. She just sat in silence for a while, until a polite voice from next to her asked:

"So... Where are you going today, young lady?" Rose turned her head to take a closer look at the man sitting beside him. He was rather old, as his hair was almost completely white. He seemed to have a strange sense of clothing; he wore a white shirt and an old-fashioned maroon waistcoat with a black tie, and dark trousers. Rose met the man's eyes, a gentle light blue colour. He seemed like a decent man.

"Oh, just going to work." she replied. "I work as a shop assistant at Hendrik's. Ever heard of it?" The old man shook his head.

"No. I'm sorry." he said politely, sounding very genuinely sorry.

"Oh, it's just a small place. Nothing to get all worked up about." she said with a light laugh, even though, considering her dreams of a more thrilling life, it felt quite disappointing that no one even knew where her work was.

"I see." the man said, smiling, but the look in his eyes told Rose that he had actually noticed her disappointment. "I'm Professor Yana, by the way." he held out his hand, and Rose shook it.

"Nice to meet you, Professor. I'm Rose Tyler." she introduced herself.

"Nice to meet you too, Miss Tyler." Their conversation ended there, quite awkwardly, until Rose thought it might be impolite to not ask anything back, so she asked him:

"What do you do for living, then?"

"Me?" Yana chuckled. "Oh, I just travel around and give talks at institutes about science. I used to live in here in London as a child, with my parents. It's nice to be back."

"So you're a scientist, then?" Rose asked.

"Oh, I'm retired now. I've been for eight years already." Yana said with a smile on his lips. "I don't do much else than travelling around nowadays. It's getting quite tiring, actually." He drummed his fingers against the window in a beat of four. Rose nodded, not thinking of anything else to say, so the two of them just sat in silence for the rest of the bus trip.

When Rose got off the bus, the Professor followed her.

"Going the same way?" she asked as they walked down the street, but Yana shook his head.

"No, not really. But I wanted to find out where exactly this Hendrik's place you told me about is." he said, giving her a polite smile. "Do you have a lunch break, Miss Tyler? Could I have the pleasure of offering you some food later today?"

"I'm sorry, Professor, but I've already agreed to meet up with my boyfriend." Rose told him apologetically. Yana seemed like a nice man, but she was a bit confused about why he was following her. If it hadn't been for the fact that he appeared to be such an honest and kind person, Rose would've grown very suspicious by now. Seeing that Yana appeared disappointed at her rejection, she quickly added: "You could come with us, if you want to..." In fact, when she thought about it, Yana might have a lot of interesting stories to share about his travels. At least that was a lot more interesting than Mickey's constant talking about soccer and other sports.

"Oh no." Yana laughed heartily. "I don't want to be a burden for you youngsters." Rose actually felt a bit disappointed, now that she had become familiar with the thought of having lunch with the fascinating old man.

"We could always have a talk after I finish work... That's six o'clock in the evening. Maybe go to a café?" she suggested swiftly. "If you want to, of course..."

"I'd be glad to go with you, Miss Tyler. If you don't find it... embarrassing to be seen in town with an old man like me... that is?"

"Of course not!" Rose gave him a light chuckle. "And just call me Rose, please." A second later, she noticed that they had reached Hendrik's. "Oh, this is where I work."

"I see." Yana said. "I'll be here at six o'clock. Or, let's say I'll be here half past five. That way, I'll probably be here at six. I'm so bad at keeping the time, you see." He laughed a bit, but he sounded a bit sad as he did so. He began to stroll down the street, giving Rose a quick wave. "Bye for now, Rose!"

"See you!" Rose shouted and walked into the store, feeling unusually cheerful and waiting even more than usual for work to end.

The day went on as usual. She worked as normal (sorting clothes in the ladies' clothing section) until twelve o'clock, met with Mickey, had lunch with him (although she didn't mention the new acquaintance she had made on the bus), worked some more, until the clock finally was six in the evening.

Six o'clock sharp, Professor Yana stepped into the store, greeting the customers and workers alike as he walked in the opposite direction, entering when everyone else was leaving. He he spotted Rose and gave her a wide smile. Rose quickly finished what he was doing and ran up to Yana eagerly.

"Did you have a good day, Rose?" he asked as they walked out of the main doors, still as polite as he had been in the morning when they first met. When she nodded, he continued: "I've went and looked up a few cafés near Westminster, and I found a really nice place..."

"Oi! Rose!" one of the guards suddenly shouted. Rose had tried many times, but she never could seem to remember his name. She turned around as he approached her, and gave her a plastic bag. "Take this to Wilson before you leave, will you?"

"All right." Rose gave him a nod. "Professor, care to keep me company?" Yana smiled and nodded. As they turned around and walked towards the lift, Rose noticed the guard giving Yana a strange look.

"Where are we going?" Yana asked as they stepped out of the lift, into the basement. Rose had never liked this place. She found it too dark and uncomfortable.

"Wilson, the chief electrician, won the lottery. I'm delivering his money." Rose explained. "By the way, you said you had problems with being in time. I think you did quite well for someone who's bad at keeping time."

"Yes... I actually came back half an hour ago and stayed close so that I would surely be in time." Yana chuckled.

"How were you ever in time for dates when you were my age, then?" Rose said with a little laugh. Yana made a funny expression.

"That's funny... I don't seem to recall anything about dating."

"You lived in London... but didn't date? That's unusual." Rose said, but had to interrupt the discussion when they reached Wilson's office. She knocked at the door. "Hey! Wilson! I've got your money! Are you in there?" No response. "Wilson!" She turned around and rolled her eyes at Yana. "He must be in the store room."

"I see." Yana said, still having a funny expression on his face. They walked down the corridor together. "It's strange really. Now that I think about it... I remember facts about my childhood. I was born in London as John Yana. My parents were Alfred and Daisy Yana. I was the only child. I went to the University of Oxford. But I can't recall any details..."

"Nothing?" Rose asked. "Why not?"

"Well..." Yana was very focused on thinking. "The first thing I remember clearly is waking up in a hospital. That was about twenty years ago. Apparently, I had been found on a street in London, unconscious. I never found out what happened to me. Maybe something happened so that I can't remember details before that point in time..."

"That must feel weird." Rose stated. "Not remembering years of your life..." She opened the door to the store room and turned on the lights. "Wilson? Are you there?" She let her gaze pass over the room, but saw only boxes filled with clothes and dressed shop dummies. "Wilson!" she shouted again and walked deeper into the room, closely followed by Yana.

"Isn't he here?" Yana wondered. "Where could he be, in that case?"

"I don't kno... Oh!" Rose was interrupted as the door suddenly slammed shut. "This must be a joke. Some students joking, I'm sure. But where's Wilson?" She walked back to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked.

"Rose..." Yana's voice echoed from deeper inside the room, sounding very horrified. "I think I've found Wilson."

"You did?" Rose followed the sound of Yana's voice. When she found him, however, she was very unpleasantly surprised and understood exactly why Yana had sounded so frightened. Because Wilson was lying dead on the floor. Yana seemed to have recovered from the shock and was now kneeling by his corpse, examining it. Rose had to stop herself from letting out a scream, and said shakily: "What happened to him? Did he have a heart attack?"

"It appears as if he's been strangled to death." Yana said, sounding very suspicious and confused. "Poor man."

"Professor..." Rose whispered, now genuinely frightened. (Who wouldn't be after finding a corpse in a basement?) "That shop dummy is moving." It was, indeed, moving, and it was walking towards them. Yana quickly got to his feet.

"Oh my..." He took Rose's hand as more of the dummies started moving towards them. "I don't think this is a joke. I think we should get out of here, Rose." More and more dummies approached them. "We have to get to the lift. Run!" Rose didn't have to be asked twice; as Yana pulled her hand and started running, she followed. He was good at running for a man his age. Most of the shop dummies, with their stiff movements, got left behind when they spurted into the lift. Yana quickly pressed the lift buttons, and the lift door closed... right on the arm of the dummy that had been the closest to them.

"What is that thing?" Rose asked and pulled at the arm, which loosened from the rest of the dummy, still stuck in the basement as the lift started going upwards. "It's plastic, Professor! Look! It's actual plastic!" She showed the arm to Yana, who took it and examined it closely.

"Living plastic." he stated, making a funny face again, as if trying to remember something. "I've seen this before. I know it."

"Really? Where? What are they?" Rose asked as the lift stopped and they hurried out of it and out of the store itself. Now that they were out on the street, Rose felt a bit safer and a bit more confident.

"Autons." Yana suddenly blurted out. "That's what they're called. They're living plastic. Come from the planet Polymos."

"What are you saying, Professor?" Rose asked in disbelief. "Aliens? Where did you get that from?"

"I've dreamt of them." Yana told her. He was beginning to sound excited. "You see, Rose, I have dreams about aliens. I've always had them, at least during the last twenty years of my life, but I've never seen anything like them in real life before!"

"Wait, are you telling me that those plastic things come from your dreams?" Rose asked, still finding it all very unbelievable. "But you're a Professor! You know a lot about science! It can't be real... Can it?" Before Yana had a chance to answer, a voice called from behind them:

"Hey! Rose! There you are!" It was Mickey, running towards them, looking upset. "Your mum was really worried!"

"What? Why?" Rose asked, very confused about the strange turn this day was taking.

"On the news, they talked about people dressed as shop dummies walking around shooting people in pretty much every clothing store in London!" Mickey explained very quickly. "We were worried about you, so I had to come make sure you're all right."

"They're everywhere?" Rose asked, mostly to herself, but interrupted Mickey just as he was about to say something. "By the way, Mickey, this is Professor John Yana. We met on the bus this morning. Professor, this is my boyfriend, Mickey Smith..."

"Hmm... UNIT, Nestenes, and daffodils, there were daffodils involved too..." Yana was apparently completely lost in thought, as he was talking to himself and clutching the fob watch that was attached to his waistcoat by a watch chain. Somehow, Rose hadn't even noticed it before now. "And the Doctor, of course there was the Doctor..."

"Who's the Doctor, Professor?" Rose asked, trying to get Yana out of his thoughts. Yana stopped ranting and let the watch slide back into his pocket, a confused expression appearing on his face.

"Doctor who? I don't know what you're talking about, Rose." He then spotted Mickey, and his face lit up. "Ah! Hello, Ricky!" He shook Mickey's hand enthusiastically.

"It's Mickey, actually." Mickey muttered, but instead he turned to face Rose. "Whatever, let's just go home and stay inside. I'm sure the Professor can take care of himself, right? Come on, Rose!" He took Rose's hand and was about to start pulling her away from Yana, but Rose pulled her hand out of his grasp.

"You go home, Mickey, and tell mum I'm all right." she told him. "I'll... go with Professor Yana. He knows something about the shop dummies, and I've... got to make sure he gets to the police station! So that the police will get the information they need! Okay?" She gave him a kiss. "Love you!" Then, she took Yana by the hand and started walking down the street. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mickey frown, but turn around and head off in the other direction.

"What was that?" Yana asked. "The police station? They won't believe me! They'll just think I'm a silly old man, which is what I am, actually..." He sighed sadly.

"But you're right! Those things aren't human!" Rose said and waved the plastic arm she was still holding. "Here's the proof! They're made of plastic! I don't usually believe in aliens, but I don't exactly have any better theories about them! You said they were called Autons and that you dreamt of them!" Yana looked at her, his eyes filled with sorrow, but finally, he sighed and started talking:

"I dream these dreams every night. Sometimes I'm on Earth, sometimes on another planet. I'm not a human in these dreams; I'm an alien of some kind, known as the Master, and I see humans as inferior. I try to conquer the entire Universe, and I try to take over planets with all kinds of schemes." Yana explained while toying with the fob watch in his hand as they walked down the street, keeping an eye out for shop dummies. "It's strange... They feel so real, those dreams. And there's almost always a man in them. The same man, even if his appearance changes. A man who calls himself the Doctor. He always stops my evil plans. I'm obsessed with him, completely obsessed... He's my arch-nemesis, and I loathe him so deeply, but at the same time, I adore him more than anything..." He paused, a distant smile on his face.

"So that's the Doctor you mentioned... And the Autons? What about them?" Rose asked.

"In one of these dreams, I team up with the Autons to defeat the Doctor and take over Earth. I fail, of course, but that's hardly the point."

"This dream is set on Earth, then? Here in London?"

"No, it's set in the 1970's, out in the English countryside, I think, if I remember correctly." Yana replied, sounding a bit unsure. He stuck the fob watch back into his pocket. "It's strange, really. Sometimes, I just remember these dreams easily, and a moment later, I just don't recall anything from them... Like now, for an example. I was just talking about that dream, was I?" Rose nodded. "Well... Now I have problems even recalling what I just said."

"Professor, this is just..." Rose was about to comment on the absurdity of the situation when she suddenly spotted people running away... from the shop dummies coming around the corner. "This way!" she mumbled and pulled the Professor into a small gap between two buildings, where one of those blue police boxes from the 1960's was standing. They took shelter behind the police box, waiting for the dummies to walk past.

"Strange." Yana mumbled and placed a hand on the police box's doors. "These often play an important role in my dreams."

"We could call the police from in here, if it still works." Rose said and tried to pull the doors open. However, they seemed to be locked. Yana leant against the doors, tapping out a four beat rhythm against the door absentmindedly.

"Strange." he stated, clutching his fob watch again. "I seem to recall, now, that Autons are artificial life forms." Rose looked at him in confusion. "Robots." he added. "And they're operated... by..." He slipped the fob watch back into his pocket. "Hm... That's odd -I can't seem to remember. And I did, just a moment ago." A sudden thought hit Rose. Under an hour ago, the thought would've been absurd, but given everything that had happened, Rose didn't even know what could be classified as 'normal' anymore.

"Professor, does the fob watch have something to do with it? 'Cause everytime you've remembered that alien stuff from your dreams, you've been holding it."

"What fob watch?" Yana wondered, seemingly completely clueless.

"The one in your pocket." Rose said, not really meaning to sound annoyed but she probably did anyway.

"Oh, this old thing?" Yana laughed and pulled the fob watch out of his pocket. "I've had it for... for longer than I can remember. When I think about it, I have no recollection of ever finding or buying or otherwise getting it. I just... have it. Oh!" His eyes widened suddenly, as if he could see something beyond what Rose could see. "It's calling to me, Rose." He drummed his fingers against the blue wood. "Can you hear it?" And suddenly, Rose could. Voices that seemed to echo from the fob watch...

_"I am usually referred to as the Master. Universally."_

_"Open the watch and set me free..."_

_"__Peoples of the Universe, please attend carefully. The message that follows is vital to the future of you all."_

_"__Set me free, foolish human..."_

_"Weakness; Doctor? Hate is strength."_

_"Can you finally see who you truly are?"_

_**"Doctor, let me out! Doctor!"**_

_**"Release me!"**_

As the voices kept getting louder, Rose began to feel more and more frightened. There was something, some sixth sense, that told her to throw that watch away, or destroy it, or just get rid of it as quickly as possible. Yana, however, just stared at the watch, seeming very eager about the discovery, listening to the voices as if hypnotized by them.

"Professor, I don't think you should do that." Rose whispered as Yana's fingers moved closer to the fob watch, as if about to open it. "There's something -or someone- inside that watch, and I think you'll just make things worse if you open it."

"I wonder why, during all these years I've owned this watch, I've never wanted to open it." Yana said, his voice soft but bitter. "I simply assumed it was broken. Why, I don't know. Do you want me to just put this watch away, and spend the little I have left of my life wondering what it was?"

"I didn't mean-"

"I'm an old man, Rose. This afternoon has been more interesting than the rest of what I can remember of my life. I could as well make the last act of my life something interesting as well. Maybe not interesting for me, as I won't be here to see it, but interesting for the rest of the Universe, I'm sure."

"What are you saying?!" Rose yelled. Why was he talking as if he was going to die?

"Farewell, Rose." Professor Yana said, his smile wider and his eyes sadder than ever. "Thank you for giving an old man an interesting last day in his life." Then, he opened the fob watch. Rose was instantly blinded by a bright golden light that spread out of the wide open fob watch. She was seriously worried about the Professor now, considering the last words he had spoken, and very confused. Just what _was_ that watch? The light toned down, and the two of them still stood there, behind the old police box, hiding from the shop dummies. Yana's eyes were closed, and he looked peaceful.

"Professor?" Rose asked uncertainly. "Just what _was _that fob watch?"

"Chameleon Arch." His voice didn't sound kind, but harsh and angry. Yana's eyes snapped open; however, they were no longer a kind old man's eyes. They were now hard and cold and suspicious, completely different from what they usually were like.

"Are you all right, Professor?" Rose questioned, getting more and more worried every second. "What happened? What's a Chameleon Arch?"

"I'm not him." he retorted. "Professor John Yana never existed. He was a disguise, an illusion. But now, he's gone, and I'm back in my own body again!" He moved his fingers and looked at them in disgust. "This is disgusting! Twenty years as a human has done horrors to my body!" He caressed his cheek. "No! The stupid human shaved my beard off!" He fingered his hair. "Is my hair still brown?"

"Your hair is almost white." Rose told him helpfully, more confused than ever. "Who are you then, if you're not Professor Yana?"

"I am the Master." he said, giving her an sly smile that she couldn't fit together with Yana's kind face at all. Rose snorted and almost started laughing.

"The Master of _what_, exactly?" she questioned. When he gave her an annoyed look, she replied: "No, but seriously. Who would call himself **the Master**? Do I have to call you that?"

"I would, Miss Tyler." he said, a cool undertone in his once again polite voice. "Master is my name, and Master is what you'll call me."

"Wait a sec." Rose blurted out. "Yana mentioned that he dreamt that he was a bloke called the Master. Are you telling me-"

"His real identity was leaking out through the Chameleon Arch and into his subconscious." the Master stated swiftly. "Yes, Miss Tyler. I'm that Master."

"So you're some kind of alien criminal? But you look human."

"There are some obvious differences." the Master simply said, not bothering to explain anything else. He pushed Rose away from the police box doors. "Out of the way. The doors have to be **pushed** open, not _pulled_."

"But the door says pull to open-" Rose was interrupted as the doors opened, revealing... well, something Rose would never have thought she would see.

If she hadn't believed in aliens earlier, Rose couldn't deny it anymore. There was an awful lot of space inside the police box. She didn't really know how to decribe the place inside, other than the fact that it was... well, _alien_. In the middle of the room, there seemed to be some kind of control panel. The Master walked up to it, and began pressing buttons and pulling levers. The doors slammed shut.

"What is this place?" Rose asked in awe. "It's bigger on the inside!"

"This, dear Miss Tyler, is a TARDIS. The best ship in the Universe, although this one is starting to get old and rusty." the Master said, giving the console a kick, upon which a strange noise started echoing through the room. "Yes! It's working! I thought this TARDIS would still be linked to the Doctor, but now that he's not here, she's decided to link herself to me instead, isn't that true?" he mumbled to himself and patted the console absentmindedly.

"It's a **what**?" Rose asked, narrowing her eyes. The Master gave an annoyed sigh.

"A TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space." he explained slowly, as if he seemed to think Rose was stupid. "A ship that travels anywhere in time and space."

"Woah. That's not bad." Rose said, rolling her eyes. "Come on. Seriously? Can you prove it?"

"I don't have anything to prove to you, Miss Tyler. You're just a human." the Master said and glared at her.

"So..." Rose raised her eyebrows. "Autons. Attacking London. Do something about it."

"And why, exactly, should I do that?" the Master asked. "I don't care what happens to this stupid planet."

"Well..." Rose quickly tried to think of something, and made an attempt at convincing him. "If it weren't for me noticing the fob watch, you'd be stuck as a human on a planet attacked by invading aliens... 'cause that's what they're doing, right? Trying to invade?"

"That's true. They want this planet, presumably because something happened to their own." the Master told her. "There's lots of plastic on this planet... Imagine the potential."

"Wait a sec... Do you mean **all **the plastic in the world is going to come to life?! Like...phones and wires and cables and... I don't know... _breast implants_?!" Rose questioned.

"Exactly." the Master said and started pressing some other buttons.

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm trying to track the signal that's turning all the plastic alive."

"So you **are** helping now?"

"Congratulations, Miss Tyler. Not many humans have managed to convince me to do something and gotten out alive."

"...All right." Rose said, deciding to ignore that last comment. "Where is the signal coming from, then?"

"It seems to be coming from underneath... oh, what was it called now again?" the Master said, frowning. "The Ferris wheel! You know, the... the..."

"The London Eye?" Rose wondered in disbelief.

"That's the one." the Master agreed. "There's a hidden chamber underneath it, apparently... I'll just take the TARDIS straight there, I think..." The entire TARDIS shook violently and threw Rose off her feet, and the strange sound stopped. "There we are." He walked up to the door and swung it open, but not before politely helping Rose to her feet.

"What's that?!" Rose yelled as she suddenly found herself sticking her head out of the TARDIS, which was floating in mid-air, and looking down at a huge... well, it looked like a very big golden lump of plastic, but it had a face. Rose decided that this day wasn't going quite as she had hoped. Well... At least it wasn't boring?

"That's the Nestene Consciousness." the Master told her, as if that would make her understand it any better. When he noticed her clueless look, he sighed and added: "The one who's making all the plastic come to life." He pulled out a vial from nowhere.

"What have you got there?" Rose asked suspiciously.

"Anti-plastic." the Master said, giving her a menacing smile. He then raised his voice. "Am I adressing the Nestene Consciousness? Good, because I am the Master, and you're annoying me!" He grinned, before throwing the vial down at the Nestene Consciousness, who started screamed and started turning blue as soon as the vial touched it. "We'd better get out of here now!" The Master slammed the doors shut and ran back to the console.

"You... killed it?" Rose asked bluntly. "Just like that?"

"What did you expect me to do?" the Master wondered as he started the TARDIS and it started making the strange noises again. "Waltz up to it and ask it to kindly stop the invasion? That's not the way I do things, my dear Miss Tyler. Now, kindly get out of my TARDIS." The doors swung open, and as Rose peeked out, she noticed they were at...

"The Powell Estate! How did you know where I live?" she asked him in awe. He smiled, not as menacingly this time.

"I'm telepathic."

"You read my thoughts?" Rose stared at him. "Oi! That's rude!" He smirked.

"I'm one of the most dangerous criminals to ever exist in the entire Universe, Miss Tyler. Do you think I care about whether I'm being rude or not?"

"What about the Doctor, then?" Rose asked swiftly. "Your arch-nemesis, isn't he? He'll just show up and stop you again, won't he? You told me all about it while you were still Yana, you know." The Master's smirk faded away.

"The Doctor isn't here to stop me now." he said, voice growing cold and dark. "He's gone. This TARDIS used to belong to him. It's mine now. No one can stop me anymore."

"So, you're off to conquer the Universe then?" Rose asked.

"...I certainly am. Goodbye, my dear Miss Tyler." he said and closed the TARDIS doors. The spaceship-and-timemachine-in-one began to dematerialize, making that same strange noise, and Rose was left standing on an empty street. Rose just stood there, gazing at the now empty spot for a moment. She could have seen the Universe. All of time and space. (Of course, it would have been in the company of an alien criminal, but that wasn't the point.) And the Master had just... left. She'd never even got to go to that café near Westminster with Professor Yana! Rose turned around and started making her way back home for the unbearably boring normal life that was waiting for her...

...at least until she heard the TARDIS materialize again behind her, and saw the Master stick his head out of the TARDIS, saying:

"I believe I forgot that I still owe you a date, Miss Tyler. Although Westminster is a bit... boring, don't you agree, dear?"

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. If I did, Rose would've met the Master. Did she ever? No.


	3. The Last Day of Earth

A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed and favorited! This chapter centers around the episode "The End of the World", naturally. Hope you enjoy, please review. I want feedback.

* * *

Chapter 2: The Last Day of Earth

_~In which the Master is mean and brings Rose to see her planet get destroyed~_

**~DW~**

Sometimes, the Master just wanted to sit down and sulk. This was one of those days. Really. What had he been thinking? He was the most dangerous and infamous renegade Time Lord in the entire Universe (judging by the empty feeling in his head, he was also the _last_ Time Lord in the Universe, but he decided to save the sulking over that for later), so **what** in the name of Rassilon had possessed him to take that human girl with him? Maybe some part of Professor Yana's conscience had stayed with him and convinced him that it was horribly rude to not keep promises. However, now they were standing in his enemy's old TARDIS, the evil Time Lord and the young human, glancing at each other awkwardly.

"So... Where are you taking me?" Miss Tyler asked, sounding a bit worried but also excited. The Master pondered on it for a moment. Where _was_ he taking her? He didn't have a clue. Ideas flashed through his mind. The French Revolution? World War II? The sinking of the Titanic? Chernobyl? There were too many options in Earth history. Maybe he should just dump her at Skaro and get it over with. He thought about all the options, and decided that he shouldn't get her killed just yet. She might turn out to be useful. Then he had an idea. It wasn't going to get her killed (probably) but make her see things from a different perspective.

"Wrong question." He smiled wickedly and set the coordinates for Platform One in the year five point five slash apple slash twenty six. Seeing her planet burn would surely be a shocking sight for Miss Tyler -and her reaction would be an interesting sight for the Master.

"Okay, _when_ are you taking me?" she asked, and the Master smiled. She was learning. Good.

"Five billions of years ahead of your time." he said, trying to make it sound as casual as possible as the TARDIS landed and he headed towards the doors.

"And what happens five billions of years ahead of my time?" she asked swiftly. As he turned around to face her, she grinned. "I'm travelling with a bloke who claims to be a criminal. Naturally I'm a bit concerned about what you're planning."

"You'll see for yourself." The Master smirked and opened the doors. Rose stepped out, looking a bit suspicious but very curious. They descended a flight of steps together, and a large shutter in the wall descended to reveal the Earth, scorched and abandoned just as it should be.

"That's a planet." Rose stated. "So we're on a spaceship, then?"

"Not really. This is Platform One. It's more like an observation deck." the Master told her. "Also, that's not just any planet."

"Wait... Don't tell me..." Rose's eyes widened. "Is that _Earth_? Five billion years into the future?" The Master smirked. She was more clever than he had thought.

"Yes, Miss Tyler. Welcome to the last day of Earth. The day the sun expands and swallows the entire planet." he told her. Rose just stared wordlessly at the planet down below, clearly in shock.

**~DW~**

"You took me to see my planet get destroyed?" Rose glared at the Master as they walked down a corridor, apparently headed somewhere. "You know, that's actually quite rude of you..."

"I'm not interested in your opinion, Miss Tyler." the Master told her coolly.

"Fine." Rose frowned. "Where are we going now?" A mechanic voice suddenly echoed down the corridor.

_"Shuttles five and six now docking. Guests are reminded that Platform One forbids the use of weapons, teleportation and religion. Earth Death is scheduled for fifteen thirty nine, followed by drinks in the Manchester Suite."_

"Guests?" Rose asked. "What do they mean, guests? Are there other people aboard this ship?"

"Of course there is! Did you think they were just keeping an empty spaceship above a dying planet just for fun? Also, and that depends entirely on what you classify as people."

"Well, people! What else? What would you mean?" Rose asked, sounding bewildered.

"Aliens." the Master told her, smirking. "They've gathered here to watch the planet burn. And before you ask what for, I'm going to tell you. For fun."

"For fun? That's just... alien." Rose sighed. "When will it happen? When will the sun destroy it?" They entered a large area with a few display cases and a view of space to the front and above.

"In about half an hour." the Master said, suddenly turning his head to the side. "Oh, here comes the Steward!" Rose followed his gaze, only to see a blue-skinned person striding towards them. A... wait, what?

"What the hell are you doing here?" the Steward asked angrily. "This is maximum hospitality zone! The guests have disembarked! They're on their way any second now!"

"Oh, that's very nice of you." the Master stated and rolled his eyes. He faced the Steward and glared at him with surprising authority for an old man. "I am Professor Yana, and this is Miss Tyler. We're guests." The Steward blinked, and then frowned.

"Show me your invitation." he stated. The Master looked unpleasantly surprised, but quickly flashed the Steward a smile and pulled out a piece of blank paper from a pocket.

"Here! Professor Yana plus one! She's the plus one." He gestured towards Rose. "Is everything all right now?" The Steward blinked, looking confused.

"Oh! Yes! My apologies! If you're on board, we'd better start! Enjoy!" He headed towards a lectum. Rose turned to the Master.

"What was that all about?" she asked in confusion. "That paper is blank." She pointed at it. "And the Steward is blue."

"I tried to hypnotize him into believing we were guests, but it seems like my hypnotic powers have been weakened after being a human for twenty years." the Master explained, looking sour. "When that wouldn't work, I had to use this paper. It's a psychic paper. Shows people what I want them to see. And yes, he's blue."

"...Okay." Rose stated, trying to process all the sudden information. "And why are you suddenly calling yourself Professor Yana again?"

"If I introduce myself as the Master, he'll just start asking questions. Look, now the guests are arriving." the Master said, nudging her. Rose looked up, and saw three bark-skinned people coming into the room, followed by a blue alien, some black-robed people, a giant humanoid head in glass case and various other strange creatures that Rose would never have imagined to meet.

"What are those?" she whispered, pointing at the bark-skinned people.

"Trees." the Master stated simply. "From the Forest of Cheam." Rose just sighed. This was just too weird.

"There will be an exchange of gifts representing peace. If you could keep the room circulating, thank you." the Steward's voice echoed through the room.

"Gifts? But we don't have any gifts!" Rose whispered to the Master as the trees started approaching them. "What are we going to do now?" The three trees all glared at them, clearly not pleased with them.

"You're wrong, Miss Tyler. I knew of this. Of course I brought gifts." the Master told her calmly. "But maybe we shall let our new friends give us their gift first?"

"The Gift of Peace." the one woman of the three said and gave the Master a rooted twig in a small pot. "I bring you a cutting of my grandfather."

"Thank you." the Master said politely and quickly gave Rose the plant. "In return..." He pulled something out of his pocket. A stick of... _celery_? Rose just couldn't help staring at it. "...I give you celery, an old Earth delicacy."

"How... interesting." the tree-woman said and took the celery, although she didn't seem all that pleased, just confused. The Master just smirked.

"Really? _**Celery?**_ Why?" Rose asked as she watched the Master handing over the sticks of celery to each and every alien in the room. He grinned at her.

"There's a huge supply of celery in the TARDIS."

"Why would there be a huge supply of celery in the TARDIS?"

"There isn't anymore." the Master chuckled as he handed away a piece of celery to the strange blue alien who had introduced himself as the Moxx of Balhoon. "I picked it all away."

"Why are you giving it all away?"

"You wouldn't understand if I tried to explain."

"Why would you even have one in the first place?" Rose asked, a bit confused to why a criminal would keep celery in the TARDIS just to get rid of it. The Master gave her a glare.

"I wasn't the one who put it there!" he snarled, but the Moxx of Balhoon interrupted him by coughing loudly. The Master swung back to him. "Yes?"

"My felicitations on this historical happenstance. I give you the gift of bodily salivas." he said, and then proceeded to spit the Master in the face.

"Thank you very much." the Master said, polite as ever even if he was looking very disgusted and displeased, as the blue alien turned around and left them. Rose started laughing loudly at his expression.

"Y-you just looked so silly, I c-couldn't help but laugh!" she said between breaths as the Master glared at her.

"Ugh." The Master pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face with it. "I say, Miss Tyler, if you had been the one to get spit at, you wouldn't have laughed." He was quickly interrupted from his bad mood by the now-approaching black-robed group of aliens. "Oh! The Adherents of the Repeated Meme! I bring you an Earth delicacy!" He waved the celery in front of them, and the one standing closest took it.

"A gift of peace in all good faith." it said and held out a metal ball. The Master took it and examined it curiously.

"Now what's this?" he muttered to himself. "I'll have to examine thi-" He was interrupted and apparently startled as the Steward started talking again, and dropped the ball to the ground.

"And last but not least, our very special guest. Ladies and gentlemen, and trees and multiforms, consider the Earth below. In memory of this dying world, we call forth the last Human. The Lady Cassandra O'Brien Dot Delta Seventeen!"

"Oh no." the Master groaned from beside her. Rose didn't know what she expected to come into the room after those words, but what came into the room was definitely **not** what she had expected. A face in a piece of thin skin stretched in a rectangular frame was wheeled in by two men hidden in top-to-toe hospital whites. Rose couldn't help but stare.

"Oh, now, don't stare. I know, I know it's shocking, isn't it? I've had my chin completely taken away and look at the difference. Look how thin I am. Thin and dainty. I don't look a day over two thousand." Cassandra said. "Moisturise me, moisturise me!" One of her attendants used a pump spray on the skin.

"Not her..." the Master muttered, sounding very annoyed and displeased. Rose just kept staring at Cassandra in horror. The "last Human" kept talking about her childhood and something else, Rose couldn't really bother listening anymore. This was like all those celebrities who tried everything to make themselves younger, only taken to the very extreme. She turned to the Master, to ask him if they could leave, only to find him in a conversation with the tree-woman from earlier.

"That's enough." she mumbled to herself and walked right past everyone, out of the room. She just... had to be alone for a while.

**~DW~**

The Master really wasn't interesting in having a conversation with this tree. The Forest of Cheam was, in his opinion, not a very interesting place. Not a place he was interested in ruling. In other words, he just didn't care. However, the tree had seemed very eager to have a conversation with him.

"Excuse me, Professor Yana." she suddenly asked him. "That was your name, wasn't it?"

"Oh yes, that's me." he said, flashing her a charismatic smile. "What's your name, Miss?"

"Jabe." she told him. "But..." The Master quickly interrupted her.

"Well then, Miss Jabe, what was it you wanted?" he asked her.

"I tried scanning you earlier." she said, holding out a metal device, very similar to a camera. "I wanted to find out what species you were. But it wouldn't identify you, and when it finally did..." The Master's eyes darted around the room and he noticed that Miss Tyler was nowhere to be seen. What a perfect excuse.

"I'm sorry, Miss Jabe, but my... acquaintance seems to have wandered off." he excused himself. "I believe I should go and find her." He quickly dashed off, not bothering to listen to her reply. Damn. If she had succeeded in finding out his race, he could be in trouble. He just had to hope she had never heard of the notorious renegade Time Lord who called himself the Master...

It took him about five minutes to find Miss Tyler. She was back in the gallery where she had first found out where they had gone. She was sitting on the small staircase, Jabe's twig in her lap. He was just about to ask her why she had left the observation gallery, when she suddenly blurted out:

"My mum's dead. In five billion years, my mum's dead. And Mickey, and all my mates back home."

"How sharp of you to realize that." the Master said sarcastically. Rose just glared at him for a moment, but then she asked:

"Where are you from?"

"What?" the Master asked, glaring at her. "Me?"

"Yeah." she said, looking up at him from where she was sitting. "I mean, what planet? What species are you? You look so... human. Is that a disguise or something?"

"No, this is my natural form, and there are lots of differences between our species." the Master said as he sat down beside her, wincing at how little awareness humans in her time period had of the Universe's other inhabitants. "Also, my planet hardly matters. You wouldn't have heard of it anyway."

"Differences. What differences?" she wondered.

"That's none of your business." the Master muttered. "What are you doing here all on your own, Miss Tyler?"

"You could just call me Rose, you know." she told him. "It's just... All this... It's so alien. It's too much. I had to get away. I had a chat with an alien plumber named Raffalo. Hey, why are all the aliens speaking English?"

"It's the TARDIS's telepathic field. It goes inside your brain and translates everything for you." the Master said, hiding his amusement at the girl's reaction.

"What? Your machine **changes my mind** and you didn't even bother telling me?!" she bellowed, actually sounding angry this time.

"Why would I? Also, blame my dear arch-nemesis, he was the one to program the TARDIS to do it in the first place! It used to be his, after all!" the Master hissed. "You're lucky, you know. Not many humans get to do this."

"What, do your people, whatever they're called, often take humans on travels?" she questioned.

"Not usually. The Doctor liked to do it, though. He always took humans on his travels. He was one of the only to do that, though." The Master sighed. It just wouldn't sink in, that the Doctor wasn't going to show up and thwart any plan of his anymore. "I never would."

"You took _me_ along." she pointed out, and the Master was just about to shout at her that that wasn't the case at all and he'd just taken her on one trip to thank her for giving him his memories back, but he was interrupted by a huge tremble, probably the entire space station shaking, and the Steward's voice echoing through microphones immediately after:

"Honoured guests may be reassured that gravity pockets may cause slight turbulence, thanking you."

The Master's eyes narrowed. That couldn't be. There was something strange going on.

**~DW~**

Rose suddenly found herself pulled down the corridor by the Master. The old man suddenly seemed very stressed and even a bit... worried? She wondered why that was.

"That wasn't a gravity pocket." the Master mumbled, half to himself. "We're going back to the TARDIS, right now..." They reached the TARDIS, and the Master opened the doors. Or rather, he _tried_ to open the doors. He pushed and pushed at them, but they wouldn't budge. "Oh no... What do you think you're doing?!" he yelled at the ship.

"What's wrong?" Rose wondered, now also beginning to get worried.

"The ship won't let me in." the Master spat, glaring at the door. "It's as if she doesn't want us to leave. Stupid ship! Let me in!" He gave the door a hard kick, but the only result was a flash of electricity, and with a scream of pain, the Master was knocked to the floor.

"Are you all right?" Rose leant down to help the Master to his feet.

"She electrocuted me! I can't believe this!" he shouted in frustration and got to his feet on his own, ignoring Rose's helping hand. Then, realization seemed to dawn upon him, and he groaned. "Of course... She's still the Doctor's, through and through. She knows something's going on, and now she's decided that I'm not leaving unless I fix this mess, whatever it is..."

"So what will we do now?" Rose asked him.

"We'll just have to go and ask the other guests if they know anything." the Master said with a sigh, took Rose's hand and began leading them back to the room where all the aliens were.

"Hey, that Lady Cassandra-whatever-her-name-was, do you know her? You seemed so annoyed when you saw her." she questioned him. "Although I can understand why you are annoyed. She seems like the annoying type..."

"We've met once." the Master explained. "It was a long time ago for me, though. I was a different man back then. Literally." He smirked, and Rose wondered if that had been an attempt to joke and she had missed the point. The Master's smirk quickly faded. "It must have been quite recently for her, though."

"What happened?" Rose wondered curiously.

"Let's just say she and I had a little... disagreement." the Master said slyly. When Rose glared at him further, however, he sighed and told her: "I was attending a feast she was at. For some reason, she was smitten with me and decided that we were to get married. Naturally, I didn't agree. That caused quite a ruckus."

"What? Really?" Rose had to laugh as they entered the room. "How come she doesn't recognize you now?"

"As I said, I'm a different man now." the Master chuckled darkly. When they entered, the tree-woman approached them. "Oh, hello Miss Jabe. I guess you've noticed that the tremor was no ordinary gravity-pocket." She seemed surprised.

"Oh, well, yes, I did." she answered eventually. "It's so strange..."

"Where's the engine room? Do you have any idea?" the Master asked.

"I'm not sure, but the maintenance duct is just behind our guest suite." she replied, still eyeing the Master suspiciously.

"Could you show us?" the Master asked. She seemed surprised by his question, but when he glared at her, she quickly nodded. "Miss Tyler, come on."

"What? But I wanted to go ask Cassandra about you." Rose grinned cheekily, but the Master simply glared at her, took her hand and pulled her with him as he followed Jabe towards the maintenance duct as a computer voice echoed:

"_Earth Death in fifteen minutes. Earth Death in fifteen minutes._"

**~DW~**

As the Master followed Jabe into the maintenance duct, he couldn't help but feel irony for his current situation. This reminded him far too much of the Doctor's adventures where he always ended up having to save everyone. Not to mention the fact that Miss Tyler was currently playing the role of the 'companion', like the Doctor had insisted to call his human pets.

"Who's in charge of Platform One?" he asked Jabe, trying to hide his discomfort with the situation. "Is there a Captain?"

"There's just the Steward and the staff." Jabe told him. "The rest is all controlled by the computer." The Master couldn't help but groan.

"Oh no. Computers always complicate things." Well, they couldn't exactly be hypnotized or tricked into obedience, so it was true.

"So this entire ship is automatic?" Miss Tyler asked as she watched the swags of wiring and piping all around them. "So if something goes wrong there's no one here to fix it?"

"Nothing can go wrong with this ship." Jabe simply said. "It's unsinkable."

"Sure, that's what they said about the Titanic." Miss Tyler grumbled. The Master couldn't help but smile.

"I fear we're facing a situation very similar to the Titanic indeed." the Master noted and gazed around the room. "There must be sabotage involved. I'm sure of it. Ah-ha!" He spotted something moving on the floor, and quickly lunged forward to catch it. It was a small robot, about the size of his hand, similar to a four-legged spider. The Master held it up and showed it to the two women.

"What's that?" Jabe questioned and gazed at it suspiciously.

"It's a robot, probably used for sabotage." the Master explained to her and examined the struggling little spider. "Someone on the ship must have brought it aboard." He started walking around, looking for more clues, thoroughly irritated at the person who had brought the spiders onboard and, consequently, ruined his day. Having to save people?! Any megalomaniac would count that as a bad day. When he swung around, he heard Jabe ask Miss Tyler:

"My device says you're human, pure human! But how can you be a human?" Jabe sounded like she was interrogating a prisoner. Miss Tyler looked very uncomfortable with the question, and kept throwing uncertain glances at the Master.

"I... Uh..."

"She's from the twenty-first century." the Master exclaimed irritatedly as he glared at Jabe. She was already aware that he was a Time Lord, so what was there to hide? "She came here with me." Jabe's eyes widened.

"So you really are a Time Lord!" Jabe exclaimed and shook his hand enthusiastically. "I thought the Time Lords were just a legend!" The Master rolled his eyes. Was that what the most powerful civilization in the Universe was now seen as? A legend? "And you travel with a human girl..." She gazed at Miss Tyler, and back at the Master again. "You must be the Doctor!"

"I assure you, Miss Jabe, I am most certainly not the Doctor." he replied, trying to keep polite despite the anger for being confused with his arch-nemesis (the Master couldn't quite bring himself to think of the Doctor as his _late_ arch-nemesis). He approached a door, and opened it, in hope of cutting the discussion off. He didn't hope in vain. "Oh! Look, I seem to have found the engine room!"

**~DW~**

A Time Lord... Was that the Master's species? That sounded very regal, Rose couldn't help but think. She wondered who this Doctor really was. Professor Yana had referred to him as the Master's arch-nemesis, the one who stopped the Master from conquering the Universe. However, Rose couldn't help but wonder how the old man who had taken her along for a trip in time and space could be a criminal. Sure, he could be a bit grumpy and unpleasant at times, but he still seemed like a polite old man at heart. Why had Jabe mistaken him as the Doctor?

The engine room was enormous. The Master approached something that looked like a catwalk, that ran through a series of large fans. He looked very suspicious.

"There's definitely something wrong." he told her and Jabe. "Someone is doing sabotage with the help of these." He held out the small metal spider. "Now that we know where the engine room is, in case of emergency, shall we go find out who the culprit is?" Tucking the spider back into his vest pocket, he gave a wide grin, probably eager with the thought of ruining something, and headed out of the room. Jabe and Rose followed him, but the Master told them that he had to go report this to the Steward first, and told them to head back to the observation gallery, maybe to look for suspicious behaviour among the other guests.

"So... How did you end up travelling with a Time Lord?" Jabe asked as she and Rose were standing alone in the observation gallery. "I've heard that they usually go by titles. The Professor, is that his title?"

"Um... No. It was all by coincidence, actually." Rose and shifted her feet uncomfortably, not really knowing how much she could reveal, but she was interrupted by the computer's voice:

"_Earth Death in ten minutes. Earth Death in ten minutes._"

"The planet's end. Come gather, come gather." Cassandra drawled melodramatically, immediately getting everyone's attention. "Bid farewell to the cradle of civilisation. Let us mourn her with..." Exactly what they were supposed to mourn the planet below with, Rose never found out, because the Master chose that moment to step into the observation gallery, and exclaim:

"The Steward is dead."

"Who are you?" someone in the room asked in confusion.

"I am universally known as the Master, but that doesn't matter now. The Steward is dead." the Time Lord repeated. When everyone stared at him (especially Cassandra), not quite able to process the information, he added irritably: "The sun filter in his office descended, exposing him to the heat. Someone is sabotaging."

"Who did it?" the blue alien from earlier (the one who spat the Master in the face) asked, sounding frightened.

"This whole event was sponsored by the Face of Boe! Ask the Face!" Cassandra shouted, turning everyone's attention to the giant head in the glass case. "Oh! Moisturise me, moisturise me!"

"I say it's rather easy to find out who's behind it." The Master chuckled, pulling out the metal spider from his pocket. "Someone brought their pet onboard." He placed the spider on the floor. "There. Go to your owner." The little robot scuttled around the room, towards the black gowned group.

"The Adherents of the Repeated Meme! J'accuse!" Cassandra shouted dramatically. The Master, eyebrows raised in suspicion, approached the Adherents.

"Very well, but if you think about it..." Their leader made an attempt to hit the Master, but the Master raised his own hand, grabbed the arm and... pulled it off? "A Repeated Meme is just an idea. _They_'re just an idea." He pulled a wire from the arm, which in turn caused all the Adherents to collapse. The guests all gasped. "Remote controlled droids. Nice cover. But the **real **culprit is..." He pushed the spider, urged it to go on. The spider did exactly that, and ran up to Cassandra.

"Oh, you're a clever one, aren't you, Master?" Cassandra gave him a smile that was probably meant to be flirty (but the fact that she was nothing more a piece of skin kind of ruined it). "Though you didn't look like that last time we met."

"Time Lord thing." the Master said with a smirk, however he clearly didn't appreciate the flirting. "What are you going to do now, then? Moisturise me?" he teased. "Sabotaging a ship while you're still inside it? That's a bit stupid, in my opinion."

"I had hoped to manufacture a hostage situation with myself as one of the victims. The compensation would've been enormous." Cassandra smirked. "Also, I'm sorry. I know that the use of teleportation is strictly forbidden, but I'm such a naughty thing. Spiders, activate." A series of explosions could be heard, followed by the computer's voice:

"_Earth Death in three minutes. Earth Death in three minutes._"

"Forcefields gone with the planet about to explode. At least it'll be quick. Just like my fifth husband. Oh, shame on me." Cassandra laughed. "Bye, darlings." With a last wink at the Master, she and her attendants beamed out, teleporting out of the ship.

"_Safety systems failing._" the computer voice exclaimed.

The Master swore.

"What do we do now?" Jabe asked as the panic began to rise among the guests. Rose was suddenly overcome with the fact that her chances of getting out of this alive were rapidly sinking. Next, she realized that she had never said a proper goodbye to her mum and Mickey. Filled with horror, Rose took a deep breath and tried to tell herself it would be all right.

"We'll have to find a way to reset the computer." the Master stated. "Miss Jabe, would you like to company me to the engine room?" Jabe was just about to reply when Rose broke in. The Master had taken her along for this trip, and he wasn't going to abandon her with some aliens and run off with a talking tree and save the day while she risked burning to death!

"I can do it. You brought me along, and I want to be of some use." she stated boldly. The Master looked her in surprise.

"Very well, then. Let's go, Miss Tyler. To the engine room." He took her hand and started leading the way.

**~DW~**

It was hot in the engine room now. Very hot. Hot enough for the Master to begin feeling sweaty, and he didn't usually get warm that easily as his body temperature was naturally low.

"Miss Jabe sure was lucky." he stated as Miss Tyler followed into the room. "The heat in here would probably have set her on fire. Congratulations, Miss Tyler."

"She can thank me later. Let's get this done." she stated, even though the Master couldn't help but notice that she was looking a bit smug under all worry.

"_Earth Death in one minute. Earth Death in one minute. Heat levels critical. Heat levels critical. External temperature five thousand degrees._" the computer voice echoed. The Master gazed around, trying to find the switch to reset everything, only to spot it on the other side of the enormous fans.

"Of course..." he groaned and swung around, spotting another lever just beside his companion. "Miss Tyler, would you pull that lever?" She did as instructed, and as she pulled it, the fans slowed down enough to make it possible to walk past them. "All right..." He quickly spurted across the catwalk, dodging the enormous fans and making his way towards the switch.

"_Planet explodes in ten, nine, eight_..."

"It's getting a bit hot back here! Hurry!" Miss Tyler shouted at him.

"I'm hurrying all I can!" the Master shouted back and dodged the last fan, ran up to the switch, pulled it and screamed: "Raise shields!"

"_Exoglass repair. Exoglass repair. Shields rising_." The Master let out a sigh of relief. He really hadn't felt like dying in a shameful place like this one. He made his way back past the fans and approached Miss Tyler, who let go of the lever.

"Did we do it?" she asked in awe. "Did we really save a spaceship?"

"Indeed we did, Miss Tyler." the Master replied, doing his best to hide his annoyance at the fact. "Let's go back to the observation gallery and make sure everything's okay, and get out of here."

It turned out that most of the guests had survived, except the Moxx of Balhoon, who had gotten fried by the sun's rays. (The Master couldn't quite bring himself to feel sorry for the alien who had spit him in the face, though.) Jabe ran up to them immediately as they entered, holding out something that looked like an egg.

"Look at this!" She opened it, revealing a teleportation device. "Cassandra used this to escape!" The Master smirked. He was always up for a little revenge.

"Let's bring her back and gloat, then." He took the device, pressed a button and immediately causing Cassandra to appear before them once again.

"Oh, you should have seen their alien little faces!" she boasted, until she noticed the angry aliens staring at her. "Oh. So, you passed my little test. Bravo. This makes you eligible to join, er, the Human Club."

"I think I'm going to inform you, Cassandra, that if you attempt to trap some aliens on a spaceship to kill them, never let a Time Lord, especially a renegade one, be among them." the Master said, smirking with glee. "We tend to be experts at ruining peoples' plans."

"People have died, Cassandra. You murdered them." Jabe spat bitterly.

"It depends on your definition of people, and that's enough of a technicality to keep your lawyers dizzy for centuries. Take me to court, then, and watch me smile and cry and flutter..." Cassandra drawled dramatically.

"And creak?" Miss Tyler wondered.

"And what?" Cassandra questioned.

"Creak. You're creaking." Miss Tyler stated. And that she was. Cassandra's eyes widened with shock at the realization.

"What? Ah! I'm drying out! Oh, sweet heavens. Moisturise me, moisturise me! Where are my surgeons? My lovely boys! It's too hot!" she screamed. The Master chuckled.

"_You _raised the temperature." he accused.

"No! I'm too young to die!" Cassandra yelled, but too late. The piece of skin was ripped apart with a _splat_ from the heat. Miss Tyler stared at Cassandra's remains with horror and disgust.

"Very well, I saved the day, now we're getting out of here!" the Master exclaimed loudly and took her by the hand, beginning to lead her back to the TARDIS. Miss Tyler seemed like she was about to protest, but she didn't say anything until they actually reached the TARDIS.

"Are we just going to leave? Just like that?"

"What else?" he countered, but before one of them had the chance to say anything more, the Master spotted Jabe approaching.

"Wait!" the tree shouted. "I just want to thank you! What you did was very brave! What are your names? Are you really _the Master_?" The Master was just about to snarl that they hadn't done it for unselfish reasons and that their names were none of her business, but Miss Tyler was too quick for him.

"I'm Rose Tyler, and yeah, this is the Master." she introduced them. Jabe's eyes widened in recognition, and the Master knew that he had to be quick.

"Farewell, Miss Jabe. I doubt we'll be seeing each other again." he snapped and pulled Miss Tyler into the TARDIS. She managed a quick: "Bye!" before the Master slammed the TARDIS doors shut.

"That was foolish." he stated as he began pressing the buttons on the console. Miss Tyler just smiled at him.

"We were almost inside the TARDIS anyway, and you saved their lives, so I thought they should know." she explained. Then, she gave him a grin. "That wasn't a very successful date, was it? I think we should go to that café at Westminster instead. What do you say?"

The Master sighed. At least he would be able to bring her home, then. "Whatever you say, Miss Tyler."

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. If I did, the Master would have much more appearances.


	4. Victorian Ghosts

A/N: Sorry, this chapter took a while because I started Senior High School and I got a bit overwhelmed by my studies... and the fact that my headmaster (who looks a lot like Professor Yana) has a pocket watch! This chapter, based on the episode "The Unquiet Dead" was also very hard to write and somehow Charles Dickens disappeared from the story and only makes small appearances, unlike in the real episode where he's a main character... Okay, I really shouldn't do too much talking. Just read the chapter and if you want to, give me some feedback~

* * *

Chapter 3: Victorian Ghosts

_~In which Rose gets to meet a famous author and aliens that possess dead people~_

**~DW~**

"Stupid, _stupid_ ship!" The Master kicked at the TARDIS console furiously as the ship shook violently and Rose was knocked to the floor. She quickly got back on her feet and grabbed hold of the console before it shook again.

"You're not a very good driver, are you?" She grinned at him. He just looked back at her with a scowl, looking very insulted.

"It's not my fault! It's this ship! It's far too old to work properly!" He kicked the console again, which only caused the TARDIS to shake even worse, almost throwing the Master off his feet. "I wish I had my own TARDIS and not this stupid old thing! It won't... take... me... back... to... your... time!" With every word he said, he pressed a new button on the TARDIS, completely outraged.

"Where are we going then? Can't you get me back home?" Rose asked, beginning to feel a bit worried now where she only had felt amusement before.

"Apparently not." the Master said as he pulled another lever, causing a small explosion on the console. "But don't worry, Miss Tyler. I'll get you there eventually."

"Why can't you just take this TARDIS to repair, if it's so faulty?" Rose wondered. "I mean, even you Time Lords, if that's what you're called, must have someplace to go to?"

"No, Miss Tyler! I can't take it for repair! There's nowhere to go!" the Master snarled and pressed a few more buttons, causing a great tremor again. "Now, will you please be quiet and let me pilot this ship in peace?" It wasn't even a real question, it was more of an order, so Rose decided to ignore him.

"You're in a bad mood! Why not just take a break? Land somewhere, we'll go out for some fresh air, and then you can try again." she suggested gently.

"Fine." the Master muttered and pressed a button. The shaking stopped, indicating that the TARDIS had landed.

"Where are we?" Rose asked. "Earth?"

"According to the TARDIS we are in Cardiff in the year of 1869."

"Cardiff? You could land anywhere in time and space and you land in Cardiff?!" Rose blurted out, feeling a bit disappointed. If she wasn't going to get home now, she'd wished to see some more exciting place at least! But then she remembered what had happened on Platform One and decided that it might be better to be more careful about the destination. "Oh, nevermind." she then told the Master. "Do you have any more suiting clothes here? I shouldn't go out looking like this..."

"There's a wardrobe somewhere in there." The Master absentmindedly pointed in a seemingly random direction while he examined the TARDIS console. "If the TARDIS likes you, she might help you get there."

"Sure." Rose sighed and went off in search for the wardrobe. And here she had hoped that he would actually be polite enough to show her the way.

**~DW~**

Ten minutes and forty-two seconds later, Miss Tyler returned, now wearing a black dress more suited for the Victorian era. The Master couldn't help but wonder how she'd found her way so quickly.

"What do you think?" she asked and made a small twirl. The Master nodded.

"You look fine, Miss Tyler. Shall we?" He opened the TARDIS doors and stepped out into the snowy street. She followed him, her eyes darting curiously over the scenery.

"Do you know what date it is?" she asked as they walked down the street.

"According to the TARDIS, it's December 24th, I think." the Master said, not really that concerned about the information. He wasn't good with Earth dates, but there was an annoying, nagging feeling at the back of his mind that there was something he had forgotten... Miss Tyler's eyes widened.

"Oh my god, it's Christmas Eve! Why didn't you tell me?" the human blurted out excitedly. The Master frowned. Of course. Now he remembered. Christmas... That human holiday of joy and festivities. He could recall celebrating it while posing as Professor Yana, but the memories were faint.

"I'm not exactly interested in Earth holidays, Miss Tyler." he replied coolly. She observed him casually.

"I told you, you can just call me Rose. I'm just nineteen, you know. There's no need for you to be overly polite." she explained. The Master ignored her as they kept walking. He had no intention of using her first name, as he had no intention to get further acquainted with her. He would just find out why the TARDIS had landed here and not somewhere else, and then take the young woman home to her own time. At least that was what he kept telling himself. He hoped this plan would work out too...

That was when the screaming started. People dashed out of a building nearby, one the Master quickly identified as a theatre.

"That's wonderful." the Master groaned. "I knew it. I just knew it. Of course she had a reason to land here, of course she wants me to solve whatever is going on now..." He stopped talking when he noticed that Miss Tyler wasn't standing beside him anymore. She was running forwards, towards the theatre. "Oh no, Miss Tyler, don't you da...!" The Master was quickly interrupted as he was pushed to the ground by a frightened human.

"I apologize sincerely!" the vaguely familiar bearded man quickly blurted out and pulled the Master to his feet.

"What happened?" the Master asked quickly, glaring at the human, hoping that his hypnotic powers would aid him more this time.

"The people were all just listening to my storytelling, when the walking corpse of an old woman showed up! A ghost! It frightened everyone!" the man explained, sounding utterly horrified.

"A ghost?" the Master asked, feeling more and more annoyed. Yet another extra-terrestrial being about to ruin his day... The Master glared at the man for a moment, realizing why he looked so familiar, and cast a few glances around, looking for his human company. When he didn't spot her, he just sighed. "Tell me more about it, Mister Dickens."

**~DW~**

Rose dashed into the theatre, determined to find out what had happened. The dress slowed her down quite a bit, and she stumbled several times. When she cast a look behind her while she was running down the corridor leading inside, she realized that the Master wasn't behind her. She sighed and swung around to continue, but jumped back in shock.

An old woman, probably over eighty years, was walking down the corridor. The problem was just that she didn't look alive. Rose thought that the way she walked looked like the way zombies walked in those horror movies Mickey sometimes made her watch. Her eyes were wide open and empty, and her mouth hung open, emitting some kind of blue gas-like substance. Rose began backing away slowly as the old woman came closer. This was definitely not natural. She wondered where the Master had disappeared off to. But right then, a voice shouted:

"Sir! I've found her, sir!" Rose cast a glance behind the old woman approaching her and saw another woman, maybe about her age, running towards them. She was dressed in a way that made Rose guess she was a servant of some kind. Another person rounded the corner. This time it was an older man, breathing heavily from running.

"Hurry, Gwyneth!" he shouted. Rose was just about to ask what the hell was going on here, when the old lady's mouth suddenly opened wide, and something that looked like blue gas flew out of it, for a moment taking the shape of an humanoid being, then flying towards a gas lamp and disappearing. The old lady dropped to the ground, clearly as dead as she had looked all along.

"Excuse me, Miss, but this poor lady has been taken with the brain fever!" the servant girl babbled as she ran up to the old lady's body. "We'll have to get her to the infirmary!" She and the man picked up the old lady's body and dashed off with it before Rose really had a chance to say a word. Rose took a deep breath, trying to get over her confusion, and then observed the lamp which the gas-like creature had vanished into. An alien that could possess corpses? She'd have to find the Master and ask him about it, right now. She turned on her heel and hurried back towards the entrance.

When she came back outside, she found the Master deep in discussion with a seemingly random human. The Time Lord had an expression on his face which for once wasn't anything negative, but he actually looked genuinely interested.

"I must say, I'm not usually into this pl... I mean this _area's_ literature, but I actually enjoyed A Christmas Carol quite a lot, I must say. You're quite a clever human being, Mister Dickens, and coming from me, that is some _enormous_ praise."

"Why, thank you, Professor Yana, was it?" the other man replied. "I'm honored to have heard that."

"Oi! I think we have a problem!" Rose poked at the Master's shoulder. "Gas aliens, have you ever heard of..." The Master interrupted her by clearing his throat in a way that clearly told her to keep her mouth shut for a second.

"I'm very sorry, Mister Dickens. This is my acquaintance, Miss Rose Tyler." he introduced Rose to the man who... wait, what was his name?! "Miss Tyler, this is Mister Charles Dickens." Charles Dickens?! Really?! Rose couldn't help but stare in awe at the man before her.

"_The_ Charles Dickens?!" she blurted out before she could help herself. "Y'know, the writer?!" The man before her nodded, seeming a bit confused.

"That's me, Miss Tyler."

"Wow! It's an honour, Mister Dickens! I've read many of your books!" In school for some assignments because she didn't have a choice, that was. Not that Rose had disliked his books; in fact she had liked them quite a lot. She was about to attempt to shake his hand, but then realized that she didn't know if she, as a woman, had the right to do that in this century. Now she really wished she'd paid more attention in History class... "Oh, and just call me Rose." She didn't want another person who kept calling her Miss Tyler in that ridiculously posh tone.

"All right. Hello, Rose." Dickens said and held out his hand for Rose to shake. She took it and shook his hand politely, just feeling a bit stupid over the inner monologue she'd had moments before. The Master must've been reading her mind again, because he had a self-satisfied smirk on his face which quickly turned back into a polite smile once Dickens looked back at him.

"So what have you been up to?" the Master asked suspiciously.

"Oh, I found an alien made of gas who possessed a dead person, if you're interested." Rose said, attempting to sound nonchalant, trying to mimic the Master's attitude over everything extra-terrestrial they had run into during their travelling together. However, this time, the Master's eyes widened in shock and recognition.

"But that can't be!" he whispered, his horror and bewilderment reflecting through his eyes. He snapped at Rose: "What happened to the corpse?! I have to examine it! Now!"

"There was an old man and a servant girl. They took it!" Rose explained quickly. She gazed around the street, suddenly spotting a hearse driving past, recognizing the people in it. "That must be them!" The Master's eyes narrowed.

"We have to follow them." he hissed, spotting a nearby horse-drawn carriage. "Come along, Miss Tyler. Let's catch some Victorian ghosts." He took her hand and ran towards the carriage. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Mister Dickens!" He pushed Rose into the carriage, surprising the driver (who seemed to have been dozing off) quite a lot.

"Hey! That's my carriage!" Dickens yelled, sounding very surprised as he spurted after them.

"Excuse me, but I need this." the Master said and pushed driver down from his place. The poor driver gave a frightened yelp as he landed in the snow below, but before Rose could ask him if he was all right, the carriage went off with full speed. The Master really was a violent driver, not only when it came to the TARDIS.

**~DW~**

The Master loved feeling the wind in his face in this incarnation. It made him feel free. He had noticed this fact sometime during the Time War. The Time War... The Master's thoughts drifted back to the horrors he and the Doctor had experienced. What was happening now wasn't exactly making it better. He then found himself wishing he hadn't thought of that, because his mind seemed to focus too much on one certain detail of his train of thoughts...

The Master hadn't really thought about the Doctor that much since the return of his true identity. He hadn't found himself able to. The Doctor. That foolish, foolish man. He remembered that sad smile, those blue eyes... and he found that it hurt. More than anything. It was so painful. The Master wondered how he could ever have wanted to kill the Doctor, though in his hearts he knew why. He'd never **really** wanted to kill the Doctor. He'd wanted to impress, to be respected, to humiliate, to hurt just a little but never too much.

But now the Doctor... he was... he... The Master's hands tightened around the reins as the horse dragging the carriage galloped on, the idea of following the hearse in front of them imprinted into its mind by the Master's telepathy. He couldn't think about it. He just couldn't accept it. He couldn't believe that the Doctor was... dead. There. He'd said it. (Or rather, _thought_ it.) Dead. He was dead. Dead. Gone forever. He wasn't going to regenerate, like he had back at Logopolis. He was never coming back, never going to thwart the Master's plans again, never going to show up with his TARDIS disguised as a stupid blue box, because the Master owned that TARDIS now.

The Doctor. How ridiculous it was, really, that the one thing that really mattered in the Master's world except for his own life and safety was his arch-nemesis. And how horrible it was that the Master had never realized that before it was too late. He was now forced to admit something he had never wanted to admit before.

The Master missed the Doctor, and the realization broke his hearts.

**~DW~**

Rose had a feeling very similar to sea-sickness once the carriage finally stopped. She climbed out of the carriage dizzily and almost stumbled over a pile of snow. When she cast a look around the area, she found that they were outside a chapel of some sort, the hearse they had followed positioned right beside them. She found the Master on the driver's place, apparently lost in thought. He seemed so strange, out of character; he looked like a sad old man who had lost everything.

"You okay?" Rose asked carefully. The Master blinked, and the sorrow vanished, only to be replaced with the usual coldness.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he snarled as he leapt down onto the ground. "Don't ask stupid questions like that." Rose decided that it was better not to protest.

"Okay, what are those gas creatures, then, and why did you react like that when you heard about them?" she asked him as they walked towards the chapel.

"If they are what I think they are, they are a species called the Gelth." he said, not sounding very happy to be speaking of this. "It's a long story, really. There was a war... A huge war. The... Time War." He gritted his teeth as if he was in pain. "The greatest war the Universe has ever seen. Invisible to smaller species like yours, but... devastating to higher species. The Gelth lost their bodies during the Time War, fading away and becoming gas-like entities." Rose pondered about what the Master had said for a moment.

"Higher species? Were your people involved too?" she asked. The Master froze and his eyes widened. Rose turned around to face him. He was shaking and looked very taken back with her question.

"Yes." he finally replied, with such bitterness that Rose was frightened. "But I'm not going to discuss it." He walked up to the chapel's door and knocked in a beat of four. The door opened after half a minute or so, and the servant girl from earlier, Gwyneth, if Rose recalled her name correctly, peeked out.

"I'm sorry, but Mister Sneed can't accept visitors right now." she told them, a nervous undertone in her voice. The Master ignored her, pushed her aside and walked right past her.

"Sorry about him." Rose also leapt inside before Gwyneth had a chance to close the door. "We just got a bit curious about the... walking corpse. You see, my friend, he is, um, a Professor and he's really interested in these things..." She quickly followed the Master through the corridor, and Gwyneth dashed after them.

"Stop! You can't just walk in!" Right then, a gas lamp flared peculiarly. The Master stopped and began examining it.

"Trouble with the gas, I see?" he asked Gwyneth in a light tone.

"If you don't leave, I'll have to tell my master." Gwyneth spluttered, but when the Master kept ignoring her, she spurted off deeper into the house, probably going to look for Mister Sneed.

"So... What have you found?" Rose asked, trying to ignore the fact that the Master had been so rude to Gwyneth. Who was Rose to tell him off anyway, he didn't even listen to her. The Master turned around and observed Rose closely before replying.

"There are some places where there are rifts, weak points in time and space. The reason the Gelth are appearing here in Cardiff is because Cardiff is situated on top of a rift like that." he said. "The dead human body releases gas. Thus, the Gelth can possess corpses. I guess they're on the hunt to find a physical form. They want human corpses, so to say." Rose frowned. That was just... she didn't even have words for it.

"That's so wrong! You should respect the dead!" she pointed out.

"That's just the way you see it." the Master said, raising his eyebrows. "I'd guess the TARDIS took us here to give the Gelth some human corpses to live in, and since we don't want to be trapped here forever, we should do as she wants." Rose wanted to protest, but before she had a chance to, Gwyneth came running back, along with a very annoyed Mister Sneed.

"You have no right to be here! Leave, now!" he shouted at the Master and Rose furiously. The Master gave him a polite smile.

"I apologize, Mister Sneed, but I'm here to fix your gas problem." he explained to Mister Sneed as if it was obvious. "Now, do you have somewhere we can sit down and discuss this? Over a cup of tea, maybe?"

**~DW~**

"So." the Master leant back in his chair and took a sip of the tea the servant girl had served him. "You've had the problems with these 'ghosts' for how long, now?"

"A few months now." Sneed explained from the chair opposite him. "They always said this house was haunted, but I didn't believe it until the corpses started walking..." The Human sounded worried and uncomfortable with having this discussion. Of course. He still thought they were ghosts, after all. The Master sighed. Humans were so ignorant.

"Those things are not ghosts, Mister Sneed." he stated. "They're part of a race called the Gelth. They come from a planet beyond the Earth." Sneed's eyes widened.

"What are you saying, man?" he spat.

"Mister Sneed, it's true. I know it sounds weird, but it is!" Miss Tyler barged into the conversation. She pointed at the Master. "This man isn't a Human either! He's a Time Lord from another planet!" Before they had the chance to see Sneed's reaction, the servant girl ran into the living room.

"Sir! The corpses are walking again!" she yelled. Sneed groaned.

"Oh no, not again." He got out of his chair. "I guess we'll just have to lock them in again. Wait here with the guests, I'll handle it." He hurried out of the room. The Master was sure he was going to try to reason with the Gelth by asking them if they really came from another planet. The servant girl looked at him and Miss Tyler in worry.

"You should really just leave, sir, miss." she whispered.

"I don't think so." The Master made himself more comfortable in the chair and drank more of the tea. An awkward silence occured, during which the two Human girls shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"So... Gwyneth, was it? I'm Rose. Do you like working for Mister Sneed?" he heard Miss Tyler ask eventually.

"Oh yes, miss! He's very kind!" the servant girl replied, still nervous. "He took so good care of me when I lost my parents to the flu when I was twelve."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear about that."

"Thank you, miss. But I'll be with them again, one day, sitting with them in paradise. I shall be so blessed. They're waiting for me. Maybe your dad's up there waiting for you too, miss."

"Maybe. He died years back. Wait, how did you know he was dead?" Now the Master had to turn the chair around to pay more attention to the conversation. He'd heard of this. People who grew up near a rift often gained powers beyond the comprehendable. This girl seemed to have the powers of a medium of some kind. How interesting. For a while, the Master wondered if he could use the girl's power in some sort of attempt to dominate the Universe, but decided to leave that for later.

"Sorry, miss. Ever since I was little, I've had the sight. My mother told me to hide it, but sometimes I just can't." the girl explained. "You're from London. I've seen London in drawings, but never like that. All those people rushing about half naked, for shame. And the noise, and the metal boxes racing past, and the birds in the sky, no, they're metal as well. Metal birds with people in them. People are flying. And you, you've flown so far. Further than anyone. The things you've seen. The darkness, the big bad wolf." She caught Miss Tyler and the Master staring at her. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, miss."

"That's impressive." the Master told her. "Growing up on top of the Cardiff rift... How fascinating." The girl then turned to him.

"And you, sir. You've come from even further away. From across the stars. Red grass, I've never heard the like... Oh, the things you've done, they're horrible! I can see death and destruction. And the never-ending Drums, driving you mad... You're so old, so much older than you look, even. And so, so sad. You've lost everything in the war. You're so alone. The only one that ever mattered... I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to!" The Master felt his rage rise, but forced himself to take a few breaths. He had to control his temper. He couldn't just kill her, Miss Tyler would be enraged... Hm, since when did her opinion matter?! He caught said girl staring at him, and quickly smiled.

"How impressive. I didn't expect you to be able to see **my** mind so clearly."

**~DW~**

Rose quickly decided that she had to ask the Master about Gwyneth's words later. She didn't have the chance to do so now, because Mister Sneed's scream suddenly echoed from deeper inside the house.

"Gwyneth! Come here now!"

"Oh no! What could've happened to Mister Sneed?!" Gwyneth's face twisted with worry, and she spurted off to find Mister Sneed.

"Come on, Master! Let's go!" Rose spun around, expecting the Master to be ready to go, but instead, she found him still sitting in the chair, not making any attempt to move. "Hey! Are you okay?" She approached the Master. He looked up at her, eyes filled with pain. After about half a minute, he seemed to regain control of himself.

"You- You wouldn't understand anyway." he muttered, and the pain just vanished, tucked back under layers of indifference and coldness. "Lets get going." He pulled himself to his feet and followed Gwyneth. Rose ran after him, trying to catch up. (Stupid dress, making it hard to run...) Gwyneth had mentioned a war. Rose wondered if she had meant that Time War business the Master had mentioned earlier. She'd said the Master was lonely. The Master hadn't wanted to talk about his people's involvement in the Time War. Rose was convinced that something horrible had happened to the Time Lords. They searched through several rooms, but they didn't find any traces of Mister Sneed or Gwyneth. Eventually, though, they entered a corridor and found the two Victorian people running towards them from the other side of it.

"Rose!" Gwyneth called out. "We have a little problem!" When Rose looked behind them, she spotted at least ten corpses following them, slowly but surely. After them, humanoid beings made of red gas that appeared to be flaming followed, dozens and dozens of them.

"What have you done?!" the Master shouted furiously. "There can't have been that many of them before!"

"I went down to the morgue, where most of the ghosts had been seen!" Mister Sneed's breath was shallow, and he looked very tired as he ran up beside them. "There, they came to me! They told me they needed Gwyneth's help, her powers, to be saved, because they were dying! So I summoned her, and-"

"Wait a second. Come with me." the Master interrupted him, and the group of four ran off down the corridor, the way he and Rose had taken. Once they'd circled the house for a while, they ran into a room with an iron door, and the Master slammed the door shut, using a strange gadget, which made a strange buzzing sound, at the door.

"What's that?" Gwyneth asked curiously.

"Sonic screwdriver. Locks doors." the Master said and slipped it back into his vest pocket. "So. The Gelth said they needed Gwyneth. What happened once she arrived?"

"I gladly helped! I've seen them in my dreams since I was a child, like angels!" Gwyneth whispered. "But when I did as they told me, stood under the arch, which they called 'a weak point in time and space', they started to come through more and more and took all the corpses. They changed colour, from sweet blue to flaming red, and began attacking us, telling us to sacrifice our lives for them!" Something slammed at the door violently a few times.

"And so, you ran." the Master muttered. "Of course. I should have known. The Gelth aren't here because they're in need of bodies. They're here because they want the Earth. That's why the TARDIS took us here - not to help them, but to stop them."

"Okay." Rose mumbled sarcastically. "Just the exact opposite from what we thought, then." Another alien invasion. Yay. "What are we gonna do now? Got any anti-plastic this time?"

"That only works on Nestenes." the Master stated. "Against the Gelth, we need-" Rose quickly interrupted him.

"Fire! They're made of gas, so we should use fire!" she suggested. "Am I right?" The Master looked surprised.

"Why, yes. There are better, more sophisticated ways of killing a Gelth, but fire is doubtlessly the simplest. Bravo, Miss Tyler. Your simple Earth logic actually works at times. Do you have any matches, Mister Sneed?"

"I do." Mister Sneed said and pulled out a matchbox from his pocket. He held it out to the Master, who took it.

"We need to get down into the morgue, Miss Tyler and I. The Gelth don't know we're here. Mister Sneed, can you and Gwyneth distract the Gelth?" the Master asked swiftly.

"Very well." Mister Sneed looked beyond frightened. "The morgue is down the stairs, take that corridor." He pointed at a pathway to their left.

"Come on." The Master took Rose's hand, and they were off.

**~DW~**

The morgue was an unpleasant place. The fact that it had been full of corpses a while ago didn't bother the Master. The fact that there was a portal under the arch that lead into the room which was streaming with Gelth was much more bothersome, the way the Master saw it at least. The moment he and Miss Tyler reached the portal, they were surrounded by at least twenty Gelth, their gas-like humanoid bodies shaped like red flames. (It reminded the Master of that unpleasant event at Sarn, and being reminded of that was never good.)

"Humans, sacrifice yourself to the Gelth!" one of the Gelth exclaimed, its child-like voice filled with anticipation. The Master just had to smirk as Miss Tyler moved closer to him, genuinely frightened by the other-worldly creatures.

"I'm not Human." he stated. "Look at me. You know me."

(The reason the Master knew so much about the Gelth people's fate in the Time War was because he'd been involved in their fate. At the beginning of the Time War, when he had just been resurrected, he had been sent by Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar on a mission to slow the Daleks down a bit. On the way, he'd come across the Gelth's planet (he'd forgotten the name) and decided to have some fun by taking over it. He had then lead the Gelth in a direct attack on the Daleks, and in the following battle, the Daleks had used a chemical weapon that caused the Gelth's bodies to fade away. Luckily, the weapon wasn't fully developed, so it didn't work on Time Lords like it was supposed to. The Master had barely escaped the furious Gelth, thanks to a timely rescue performed by the Doct- _the one the Master now forbad himself to think of_! After that, the Master had closely researched the Gelth, and especially how to kill them.)

The Gelth swirled around them, and one suddenly spoke.

"You are a Time Lord!" it exclaimed. "You are the Master! But how can you still be alive? The Time Lords are extinct!" The Master heard Miss Tyler gasp, but ignored it for now.

"I'm the **last** Time Lord." he corrected, fury and pain taking control of his temper once again. He then pulled out a match. "And I have the power to destroy you, unless you return back to where you came from!"

"We cannot and will not return! We need the Earth and its people, their bodies, to survive!" the same Gelth which had recognized the Master screamed. "You are the Master! Since when do you care about this planet's fate?"

"Since when?! I'll tell you! Since the Doctor died!" the Master screamed back. "Since he died and left me on this damned planet! I guess he's made it my mission now!" The Doctor's last words echoed in his head.

_"Farewell, Master! Live! For me!"_

"Master, what are you-" Miss Tyler began, but the Master lit the match up and chucked it at the portal. The Gelth all screamed and approached the burning portal in an attempt to put the fire out, but instead, they caught fire too. More and more Gelth heard the screams of the already burning ones and came to their aid, only to catch fire also.

"Run!" the Master screamed, and the frightened Human obeyed him without question, spurting off up the stairs.

Just as they came into the corridor above the stairs, Sneed and Gwyneth came running towards them.

"The ghosts just disappeared sudde-" Sneed began, but his voice was drowned in the sound of the enormous explosion just behind them. The Master walked back to the stairs leading to the morgue, only to find them collapsed and on fire.

"Oh no! I'll get water!" Gwyneth shouted and ran off. Sneed and Miss Tyler both hurried after her. The Master just stood there, watching the fire burn. At least the Gelth wouldn't be able to go after the Doctor's precious Earth now. The three Humans soon returned with buckets of water, and began putting the fire out until nothing but ashes remained.

**~DW~**

It was quite sad to say goodbye to Mister Sneed and Gwyneth, at least according to Rose. If she had met them under different circumstances, she was sure they could have been good friends, her and Gwyneth. They'd barely even had a chance to talk! If she just had lived in Rose's time... As the Master and she walked back to the TARDIS in silence, the Master still looking quite angry, Rose decided to ask about what she had been wondering about since the Gelth had been defeated.

"Are you really the la-" she began, but was interrupted by a loud yell.

"Hey! You! What did you do to my carriage?" Charles Dickens came running towards them, closely followed by the carriage's very confused original driver.

"It's standing just outside the Chapel of Rest." the Master said grumpily and pointed in the direction behind them. Dickens just sighed and began his walk to get the carriage back. Just then, a sudden and perfect idea hit Rose.

"Mister Dickens, can I have your autograph?" she asked. Dickens looked quite surprised.

"Really, miss? I see. If you really want to..." He didn't sound that thrilled, but Rose still noticed his smug expression when he wrote his name on a parchment and handed it to her.

"Thank you, sir! Merry Christmas!" she shouted after him as the to-be world-famous author ran off in search for the carriage. The Master cleared his throat.

"If you're finished with being silly, Miss Tyler, I suggest we get back to the TARDIS now. Maybe she'll finally let me take you home." He began walking, and Rose just followed him. When they eventually reached the TARDIS, the Master was quick to attempt to open the doors, and looked very self-confident when they actually opened.

"Wait." Rose interrupted him as he was about to step inside. "Are you really the last Time Lord?" The Master turned back to face her, and for a while Rose thought he was going to scream at her, but instead, the Time Lord just took a deep breath, and said:

"Yes, Miss Tyler. I am."

"So that's why you have the Doctor's old TARDIS. Because the Doctor is dead." Rose mumbled, half to herself. "How stupid of me. Of course you can't take it for repair when there are no Time Lords left..."

"My planet burned." the Master suddenly exclaimed. "Gallifrey burned. And there was nothing I could do to stop it... The Doctor..." His hand clutched the TARDIS door's handle painfully. "He died, and he took the planet with him. I-" The Master drew a shaky breath, almost as if he was on the verge of crying. "I'm alone." He looked so lost and confused for a second, that Rose just had to do something.

"Sorry." she said and wrapped her arms around the Master, giving him a tight hug. The Time Lord flinched, clearly uncomfortable with be touched so intimately, but he slowly relaxed and let Rose keep hugging him for a while.

"It's beginning to snow." the Master eventually said in an unusually soft voice. Rose looked up, and saw that the Master was right. Huge snowflakes were falling from the night sky, landing in their hair. "We should go inside." He let Rose step into the TARDIS, before stepping inside by himself. "Oh, and Miss Tyler?"

"Yeah?" Rose turned around to look at him, only to find the Master wearing that same mask of coldness again, but he looked a bit embarrassed.

"Let's not mention this ever again." he stated. Rose just smiled at him.

"Merry Christmas to you too."

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. If I did, more famous historical people would make appearances (bigger than Charles Dickens in this chapter at least).


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